{"id":2538,"date":"2019-08-16T09:29:39","date_gmt":"2019-08-16T16:29:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lindabrinson.com\/?p=2538"},"modified":"2019-08-16T09:30:52","modified_gmt":"2019-08-16T16:30:52","slug":"a-friend-to-anarchy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lindabrinson.com\/?p=2538","title":{"rendered":"‘A friend to anarchy’"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

BIG SKY. By Kate Atkinson. Little Brown. 386 pages. $28.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Reviewed by Robert P. Moyer<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Most mystery novelists move their minor characters around the chessboard of their story like pawns, always highlighting the kings and queens of their plots.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Not Kate Atkinson. She delves deep into the lives of what seem minor characters far from the heinous crime at the heart of this story. A trophy wife, her nerdy stepson, a man who loses both his job and his wife, along with just one character connected to the crime itself \u2014 she carries us so deep into their lives, with such deceptive ease, that we lose our concern about where it\u2019s all going. She leaves one person to bring all the elements of the story together: Jackson Brody.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He\u2019s the ex-cop private eye who is haunted by a family tragedy. Last seen in Case Histories<\/em>, Atkinson\u2019s previous mystery and now a successful series streaming on TV, he resurfaces in real time with a teenage son. He\u2019s not much in the \u201c\u2026real business of detecting\u201d now; he\u2019s dealing with \u201c\u2026Entrapping unfaithful boyfriends and husbands \u2026 just high-functioning morons.\u201d  He is, however, what one character calls \u201c\u2026a friend to anarchy.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

 \u201cA coincidence is just an explanation waiting to happen\u201d is his operative mantra, and it serves both him and Atkinson well here. If he didn\u2019t see that girl get into the car \u2026 If the trophy wife didn\u2019t hire him … If he didn\u2019t tackle that man about to throw himself off a cliff \u2026 The author gives him a grasp on the reins of each of the elements in the story, and lets his \u201cgrey cells\u201d lead us to a gut-wrenching conclusion. It\u2019s there where his sense of justice obtains:  \u201cHe wasn\u2019t a vigilante, he really wasn\u2019t, although his idea of right and wrong didn\u2019t always conform to the accepted legal standard.\u201d And it doesn\u2019t here, most certainly, and most entertainingly. There are so many things to admire about Atkinson\u2019s writing, but the best is the fact that the reader doesn\u2019t notice any of them. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Big Sky<\/em> is a good book.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

BIG SKY. By Kate Atkinson. Little Brown. 386 pages. $28. Reviewed by Robert P. Moyer Most mystery novelists move their minor characters around the chessboard of their story like pawns, always highlighting the kings and queens of their plots. Not Kate Atkinson. She delves deep into the lives of what seem minor characters far from […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,426],"tags":[1123],"class_list":["post-2538","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-mysteries","category-popular-fiction","tag-kate-atkinson"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lindabrinson.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2538","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lindabrinson.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lindabrinson.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lindabrinson.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lindabrinson.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2538"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/lindabrinson.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2538\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2542,"href":"https:\/\/lindabrinson.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2538\/revisions\/2542"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lindabrinson.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2538"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lindabrinson.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2538"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lindabrinson.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2538"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}